The technique of filling by a fine wire is commonly used for treating arterial aneurysms. In this case, the purpose of the filling is to ensure a coagulation of the blood pocket so as to prevent its rupture. This technique has been used in interventional neuroradiology for more than 20 years, under the name of coil technique (platinum coils).
A coil of a strip of viscoelastic material has already been inserted into the disk by Professor Husson. This strip is threaded on up to the nuclear space through the annulus.
The insertion of a wire into the nuclear space can easily be performed percutaneously. The pathways of transpedicular percutaneous access are well known to surgeons and primarily to interventional radiologists, in particular in the implementation of Kyphon balloons in kyphoplasties.
This technique consists in inserting a balloon by transpedicular percutaneous pathway into a fractured vertebra and inflating it to ensure a reconstruction of the vertebra and primarily an intravertebral space into which cement will be injected after the balloon is removed.
The transpedicular access for reaching the discal space in the case of hernias was described for the first time in 1978 by Patterson and Arbit. This technique was then improved with the use of an endoscope that made it possible to obtain the visualization of the internal space of the disk.
According to the patent application WO 2006/129027, a filling element is known that is designed to fill a vertebral body cavity for the creation of a nuclear prosthesis of an intervertebral disk. The filling element is heated in advance to a temperature that is greater than that of the human body to allow its insertion in the form of a flexible strand that forms a snarl that fills the cavity.